My Painful Crisis and a Tough Decision

[Bill Cipher]

Joe,

I think I understand your struggles pretty well. A lot of what you post often feels familiar to me, and while I don't really know you, my sense is that we're not so very dissimilar.

The Experience has definitely illuminated areas in my life from which I find myself more alienated than was previously the case. I am much more aware of the banality of my culture, the hollowness of material comforts and the grind of the rat race in general. These are all things I certainly felt before, but the awareness is now much more amplified. This, I don’t think is an unhealthy thing, but for me (and apparently for you as well), there’s an additional price to be paid.

I mean, the question isn’t whether or not American society (or any society) is full of poison and hypocrisy. It is. It doesn’t take indoctrination into the world of psychedelics to see things for what they are, and there’s certainly no tragedy in illuminating the banality of modern culture. But there is an abundance of amazing beauty throughout our waking lives, and if the world you explore through psychedelics obscures your ability to see it, then the question of whether or not it's healthy is a very valid and reasonable one.

I am beyond obsessed myself with this incredible thing we’ve found. I haven’t been deep in a little while now, but I’m haunted by it always. It’s truly become the focal point of my life - whether I’m doing it daily or laying off for a period of time. It is simply always there - and the space it occupies in my head can and does often distract me from this world. When I reach a point at which it interferes with human contact – and especially when it eats into my capacity to share myself with loved ones - then I have to acknowledge that (for me) there is a legitimate concern. Has my career suffered as a result? I don’t know that it has necessarily, but my enthusiasm for it has taken a hit - it just feels like a hollow means of attaining forever more and more crap. The thing is, I have responsibilities and a family to do right by. I don’t have the luxury of dropping out – though at times I may feel so inclined - so from time to time, I find myself taking a break for the sake of my sanity.

If you feel you’re changing into something that isn't particularly comfortable, I think laying off is a good idea. You can always return in time. DMT space is inutterably beautiful, but if you focus on it too intently, you may miss out on the beauty all around you.

 

[Ice House]

Joe....... I would never suggest you live your life for your mother. It's important to keep a few things in perspective. Spice will always be there. Your mother will not. Your still a young and relatively inexperienced young man in the big picture. Mom is a more seasoned vet, a teacher.

If mom now sees you in a different light and she says she feels that, in her honest opinion your not mentally healthy, I would take that as a serious hint that you nedd to take a break. Sometimes we become so self absorbed in life that we miss the obvious, Thats what mothers are for. They keep us in check, they keep us honest, they keep us safe. Mom only has whats best for you, first and foremost on her mind.

I would take a break. Live your life and be the healthiest Joe you can be. Just give it a try and see how you feel. If it doesnt work and spice calls, it will always be there for you.

I believe mom knows best, most of the time. If I had a penny for every time my mom said, I told you so, I'd be rich.

good luck Joe.

 

[mumbles]

You are using too much DMT, Lay off the DMT and all will reset.

 

[ohayoco]

Yes don't feel like taking a break would be a bad thing. Wasn't it Shulgin who said on his phone line in that other thread that many Western psyche users take too many and just get similar experiences over and over without taking the time to do the work to change their lives for the better? You've had the experiences, and believe me the molecule will stay with you forever, so there's no harm in now concentrating on navigating through regular space rather than hyperspace.

As always, I recommend "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" by Dr David D. Burns, everyone should read it

 

[Virola78]

Hi Joebono,

I'm reading Beyond Good and Evil at the moment, and am very much absorbed by the life of Nietzsche, so I can appreciate something of your condition.

My opinion is that such knowledge, though fascinating, is dangerous. It could lead one to become a recluse, or worse, someone who walks amongst the unawakened with disdain bordering on hatred. But one can also go down the path of Buddha, or Alan Watts, who are in the know, yet radiate a fascination, compassion, love and enjoyment for the game we play, and the ones in such breathtaking ignorance. Like an adult enjoys the innocence and beauty of a child or a kitten.

I don't know much, but I think once you have this knowledge, the best thing to do is forget it. This is exactly what God does, isn't it? Forgets it again and again. Why be God when you can be a lazy cat sleeping in the sun, dreaming cat dreams?

Anyway, I feel for your mother, and hope you can become grounded somehow.

"The falseness of a judgement is to us not necessarily an objection to a judgement.. The question is to what extent it is life-advancing, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding" -Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

You agree?
You see the link to taoism?

 

[quiksilver98]

Dont be afraid of being a stray from everyone else. Its like Rosa Parks in the bus. You should check out the don Juan series by Carlos Castaneda. Don Juan teaches exactly what you are going through.

When you realize modern society is not for you then you must deal with tolerating it before you can move out and become part of your true nature. Psychedelics open you up to who you really are. I know modern society is not for me i cant stand consumerism and the 2D minds that most people posess and im hoping to mvoe to a palce when im old where I can thrive with people who think similar ways to me and learn about the universe and im not jsut talking about entheogens.

 

[1992]

I have some advice for you. Not to sound like a dick, but nothing that you experience on any tryptamine or PEA is real. Not one lick of it. All you're doing is altering your brains data gathering/interpreting systems. Now the insights that you can get from these different states of mind can definitely be very beneficial and fun, they're not logging you in to some omniscient network of minds. Now there's nothing wrong with being radical and constantly dilated in my opinion, different people take different paths in life. However if you feel you're worse off than before, lay off the psychs and ESPECIALLY lay off the literature. Do some no brain activity like exercise or video games, see a movie with some friends or go get a cup of tea at the cafe. I've been in similar positions to you where it feels like you're pretty much a freak alien and you're outside the loop of everything in life and I was stuck in that rut for a few months. I just got out of it by hanging around my average friends and all was well and I never let myself get that far out again.

To sum it up, change your lifestyle even if you know its not "you" and see what kind of difference it makes. You can always go back to this lifestyle, but viewing it in retrospect is going to give you an even better perspective on yourself then any molecule can.

 

[soulfood]

I have some advice for you. Not to sound like a dick, but nothing that you experience on any tryptamine or PEA is real. Not one lick of it.

Not to sound like a dick, but you do indeed sound like a dick... sorry I love throwing that one back at people ...

Anyway I guess my point is that psychedelics have brought around to myself many realisations which actually were far more real than my current perceptions on whatever the topic at hand may be. If there's something way back in my mind that has been processed, but not quite pinpointed to the height of my awareness where it perhaps deserves to be due to the way I have been conditioned, the fact that a psychedelic substance brought that forward doesn't make it any less real at all.

 

[quiksilver98]

I have some advice for you. Not to sound like a dick, but nothing that you experience on any tryptamine or PEA is real. Not one lick of it. All you're doing is altering your brains data gathering/interpreting systems. Now the insights that you can get from these different states of mind can definitely be very beneficial and fun, they're not logging you in to some omniscient network of minds. Now there's nothing wrong with being radical and constantly dilated in my opinion, different people take different paths in life. However if you feel you're worse off than before, lay off the psychs and ESPECIALLY lay off the literature. Do some no brain activity like exercise or video games, see a movie with some friends or go get a cup of tea at the cafe. I've been in similar positions to you where it feels like you're pretty much a freak alien and you're outside the loop of everything in life and I was stuck in that rut for a few months. I just got out of it by hanging around my average friends and all was well and I never let myself get that far out again.

To sum it up, change your lifestyle even if you know its not "you" and see what kind of difference it makes. You can always go back to this lifestyle, but viewing it in retrospect is going to give you an even better perspective on yourself then any molecule can.

I dont agree with that. Everything you experience is a chemical reaction in your brain, and soo the question is what is real. Its all based on chemical reactions, what makes one chemical better and more realer than another? Serotonin didnt show until later on in evolution. Our brain creates the world we see, our spirit is just in it for the ride.

 

[quiksilver98]

Nothing is real, well we dont know for sure when bound by our body. Psychedelics allow one too leave their body behind. Although spychedelics arent the only answer, drums, dance, meditation all work.

 

[1992]

There is quite the difference between our consciousness and the physical world. Serotonin is old school too, it's used by single celled organisms.

 

[quiksilver98]

Maybe we arent on the same page but serotonin is our main way we see things and interpret things

 

[1992]

And for some organisms its as lowly as a way to cause excretion of waste. I don't think we are on the same page because one of the first things I stated is that it is one of the NT's responsible for information processing. I just have a much less spiritual view on psychedelics I guess, I'm not saying thats right or wrong either. I simply told joebono if his quality of life has degraded from information overload he should try a different simpler lifestyle for a while and realize that he's not stuck as a god like he said. Then after trying things differently, compare and figure out where he should go from there. Please respect my opinion because I respect yours.

 

[quiksilver98]

And for some organisms its as lowly as a way to cause excretion of waste. I don't think we are on the same page because one of the first things I stated is that it is one of the NT's responsible for information processing. I just have a much less spiritual view on psychedelics I guess, I'm not saying thats right or wrong either. I simply told joebono if his quality of life has degraded from information overload he should try a different simpler lifestyle for a while and realize that he's not stuck as a god like he said. Then after trying things differently, compare and figure out where he should go from there. Please respect my opinion because I respect yours.

Yep I totally respect you. Everyone has their own truth which they live on. Yes i also agree for him to lay off the Psychedelics for a while soo that he can process what he has learned. In the Carlos Castaneda books Don Juan always scolds Carlos when he zones out on the mushroom mixture because he claims that if you venture too far out mentally you might have a very hard time comin back.

 

[sdbc]

This is all some very good advice, and I actually think I'm going to print this thread, and put it up on my wall, to remember.

But one thing pops into my mind when reading, and I just thought I'd put it out here.

One thing is to love and accept the other 'monkeys in the circus', but one need also to accept one's own monkey, the monkey that hates and curses the other monkeys. And love that monkey, because it deserves it just as much. And just because you love and accept that part of yourself, doesn't mean you ought to act on it, act and they way you perceive act is to different things.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for such a wonderful nexus!

 

[soulfood]

This is all some very good advice, and I actually think I'm going to print this thread, and put it up on my wall, to remember.

But one thing pops into my mind when reading, and I just thought I'd put it out here.

One thing is to love and accept the other 'monkeys in the circus', but one need also to accept one's own monkey, the monkey that hates and curses the other monkeys. And love that monkey, because it deserves it just as much. And just because you love and accept that part of yourself, doesn't mean you ought to act on it, act and they way you perceive act is to different things.

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for such a wonderful nexus!

Nice words

 

[jamie]

"I have some advice for you. Not to sound like a dick, but nothing that you experience on any tryptamine or PEA is real. Not one lick of it."

You dont know that, noone knows that..so that statement is real ignorant and assuming. How do you define "real"?..by your definition there nothing we experience is real at all..so what is the point of picking away at one single area of our experience and saying thats not real?..isnt that a huge contradiction?..

 

[quiksilver98]

"I have some advice for you. Not to sound like a dick, but nothing that you experience on any tryptamine or PEA is real. Not one lick of it."

You dont know that, noone knows that..so that statement is real ignorant and assuming. How do you define "real"?..by your definition there nothing we experience is real at all..so what is the point of picking away at one single area of our experience and saying thats not real?..isnt that a huge contradiction?..

I already made that point, I think we should just respect and back off to what he beleves and maybe one day he will realize but thats upto the universe. i totally agree with you nonetheless

 

[RealAwareness]

...nothing that you experience on any tryptamine or PEA is real. Not one lick of it. All you're doing is altering your brains data gathering/interpreting systems...

I respect your opinion 1992, but this is a strictly reductionist model of consciousness - for this statement to be true, you have to a priori make the assumption that consciousness itself is nothing more than a chemical and neurological process - that the human experience could one day be replicated by computers. Now there are some very bright physicists and scientists who do hold this viewpoint - Frank Tipler, for one, the author of The Physics of Immortality and proponent of the Omega Point Theory, a great read, but one which I disagree with. I think the weight of evidence to date falls with those who hold that mind is separate from brain; scientifically, philosophically, and simply my own personal experience. How do you program Qualia? The "Redness" of red? Sure, on one hand, "red" is simply a frequency that activates certain optical receptors. But "redness", the qualitative, subjective experience of "red", isn't reducible. It is a quality that exists independently of the frequency that leads us to experience it. Strong AI proponents hold that consciousness arises from...algorithms. Now you can create an algorithm processing device from valves and water pipes, hence, if you had a large enough such structure, an emergent consciousness would arise. I find that hard to swallow - there certainly is not one shred of experiential evidence for this idea; yet if consciousness is reducible to a strict materialism, then that would indeed be the case.

Roger Penrose makes a pretty strong case against the reducibility of consciousness, and instead proposes consciousness to the experience of quantum wave function collapses within the cytoskeletal structures of the brain; the reduction into actuality the superposition of multiple possibilities. Along these lines, the "Big Wow" theory holds that at the birth of the Universe, there was sufficient quantum processing available for the Universe to have achieved sentient awareness; essentially a scientific version of panpsychism. Additionally, it is a growing theory that "awareness" is a fundamental quality of reality; the more sophisticated the organism, the greater the awareness. The point is, there is a strong theoretical, rational and scientific framework in regards to the nature of consciousness growing to provide a lot of support that what we can experience on psychedelics is indeed "real" - just a different side to reality than we normally see. But I have drifted way off topic!

This is a great thread, and the advice given is good for myself as well, as I have going through similar struggles as joebono, just without the dmt usage. Paradigm shifts are never easy. I would concur with the opinion given by so many that taking a break is a real good idea.

RealAwareness

 

[۩]

Yep I totally respect you. Everyone has their own truth which they live on. Yes i also agree for him to lay off the Psychedelics for a while soo that he can process what he has learned. In the Carlos Castaneda books Don Juan always scolds Carlos when he zones out on the mushroom mixture because he claims that if you venture too far out mentally you might have a very hard time comin back.

Don Juan was a fabrication of Carlos' twisted mind. Read his biography, I would never take anything he says as fact.
Don't get me wrong, the Art of Dreaming was a great fiction novel, but Casteneda was a pretty twisted dude! Definitely not to be taken literally in any way shape or form!